Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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At our last account of the stages of Sherman's march he had gained the peninsula formed by the Salkahatchie and Edisto Rivers, and had now the choice of going to Augusta or Charleston. He declined both places. In his official report, he says: “Without wasting time or labour on Branchville or Charleston, which I knew the enemy could no longer hold, I turned all the columns straight on Columbia.” On the 16th February, his advance was drawn up on the banks of the Saluda in front of Columbia.

It had been hoped to the last by the people of Columbia that the town would be vigorously defended, and made a point of decisive contest in Sherman's pathway. But the old, wretched excuse of want of concentration of the Confederate forces was to apply here. Gen. Hardee was not the man to grasp the business of a large army, and he had never had his forces well in hand. The remnants of Hood's army, the corps of Cheatham and Stewart, had been brought to Augusta, to find that Sherman had given the cold shoulder to it, and moved down the railroad. On the lower part of the road, Hardee could not be persuaded that Charleston was not the chief object of Sherman's desires, and so lay behind his fortifications, at Branchville, to protect it. In this uncertainty of purpose there was no force afield sufficient to check Sherman's course. The only Confederate troops which contested his advance upon Columbia consisted of the mounted men of Hampton, Wheeler, Butler, etc., and, although they made stubborn head against the enemy, their opposition could not, of course, be more than that of severe skirmishing.

Yet, to the last moment, it was hoped Columbia might be saved. It was asserted that the corps of Cheatham and Stewart were making forced marches, with a view to a junction with the troops under Beauregard, and such was the spirit of the Confederate troops, and one of the Generals at least, that almost at the moment when Sherman's advance was entering the town, Hampton's cavalry was in order of battle, and only waiting the command to charge it. But the horrours of a street fight in a defenceless city, filled with women and children, were prudently avoided; and the Confederate troops were drawn off from the scene at the very hour when the Federals were entering it. The gallant and chivalrous Hampton was eager to do battle to the last; when it was proposed to display a white flag from the tower of the City Hall, he threatened to tear it down; he reluctantly left the city, and so slowly that a portion of his command passed on the road to Winnsboroa in sight; of the column of the enemy, giving it the idea of a flank movement of cavalry.